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Close reading of the poem One Art by Elizabeth Bishop $9.95   Add to cart

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Close reading of the poem One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

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An assignment from the poetry module of English literature at Brighton University. Analysing One Art by Elizabeth Bishop using quotes and context.

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  • July 11, 2023
  • 3
  • 2021/2022
  • Essay
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One Art by Elizabeth Bishop is a poem about loss. It is in the form of a villanelle and so consists of five

tercets and a quatrain. It has a flowing spoken rhythm in a loose iambic pentameter with every first line

rhyming with every third. Bishop does not waste any time getting to the central theme of the poem by

using the sucker-punch of a first line: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master;”. This line presents the idea

of ‘losing’ as something to practice and learn; that the more someone loses, the better they get at it. It

suggests that the speaker is someone well versed in the art of loss and someone who has already

experienced a great amount of it, so much as to ‘master’ it. Bishop follows this opening with “so many

things seem filled by the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.” This has a casual tone to it,

offering that loss is just a part of life. This is the first instance of enjambment in One Art though Bishop

uses it often to create a rhythmic flow. In this case, the enjambment helps contribute to the casual tone.

If there was punctuation at the of the second line the flow would be lost and creates an impactful

storytelling with contrast to a more emotional tone later in the poem.




The second tercet continues with the casual tone Bishop has set up. It uses the imagery of searching for

lost door keys as a relatively inconsequential loss. It says, “Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.” Then, as fitting to the form of a villanelle, the first line of the

first stanza is repeated as the closing line in this stanza: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master.” This

repetition reads like a mantra: it gives the feeling of the speaker repeating this to themselves in hopes of

convincing its truth. It also reinforces its own idea, as practice must occur in order to master an art, and

by repeating the line, practice is occurring.




In the third stanza, Bishop begins to bring in more substantial losses and more emotion in connection to

those losses. It reads: “Then practice losing farther, losing faster:” In the path of mastering loss, you

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